Unable to Scream
by Eternity's Voice
Summary: Mira of Lesandor is the perfect knight-in-training, even if she is a girl. Her friends joke that she will break the Chamber because she has no fears. They don't know that Mira has good reason to fear Silence. It killed her family and still calls for her.
1. Silent

Anyone who reads my fiction knows, I normally post a chapter for my fics every other day or so...or I try to anyway.  This is not a normal fic and it will be taking its own sweet time.  By this I mean about a chapter a week.  The updates may be longer or they may be the same 1000-2000 word chapters I tend to write.  This is my first Tamora Pierce fic, but please don't go easy on me.

**Author's Note**

**I -sadly- do not own Tortall, etc. (Tamora Pierce) or the Gentlemen (Joss Wheldon...**this is NOT a Buffy fic.**).  I don't waste my precious creativity on…**

**…ARE YOU STILL HERE! GET TO THE STORY YOU IDIOTS!  If you don't scroll down right now, future chapters will have the worst DEPRAVITIES YOU CAN GIVE A TORTALL STORY!**

I will misspell 

1 ROGUE as ROUGE (Also an X-Men problem, but it happens almost never since most offenders have been assassinated by fans)

2 ALANNA as ALLANA or worse

          and all of those stupid mistakes where you use the wrong form of the word  (ex: their, there, they're **and** **so many more that would make you cringe if I stuck them in one place for you to read…hey…that could be fun…)**

I will destroy the antagonists in the plot and make them black and white monsters with one-track-minds only fit to be in a silent movie…oops…too late.  But that's beside the point.  Don't you want a complex villain with emotions and motives that you wish would beat the crap out of the hero?---------------**Damn little brainwashed simpletons…**

I will end all effort to create a feeling for the story, in other words, Tortall and all that comes attached will no longer be a magical kingdom but a weird American Middle School with the odd curtsey and spell thrown in.

          And, _HORROR OF HORRORS!! _

_                   EVERY CHAPTER HENCEFORTH WILL BE ENTIRELY IN INCREDIBLY REPETITIVE SONGFIC FORM.  (GASP! COVER YOUR EYES IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!!)_

                   Ah!  That feel good.  Guys, I'm just kidding.  I would never jade your innocence like that.  Take the above as constructive criticism or an innocent joke at our expense.  Yes, even me.  

          That brings me to a question.  If I have any stupid errors in my stories, could you please tell me semi-nicely?  I'm careful, but definitely not perfect.

          Very truly yours, 

Eternity's Voice...Oh stop reading the niceties and get to the real stuff!****

***

Unable to Scream

***

Mira of Lesandor is the perfect knight-in-training, even if she is a girl.  Strong as steel, her friends joke that she will break the Chamber, rather than the other way around.  If only they knew that Mira is terrified of the Silence, and has a very good reason to be.  The Silence killed her family in front of her eyes and still calls for her death.

Prologue      

The people of Lesandor went about their daily routine unnaturally quiet.  Winces struck faces as doors shut gently.  That small noise was too loud.  The bustle of the town's markets and the normally unending songs of workers were gone.  The woodsmen, who held daily contests to see who could cut the trees the loudest, instead competed for the softest hacking of timber.  The women weeding in the fields concentrated on the ground and never whistled their magic charms to help ease the stubborn plants from the dirt.  No plump matrons were willing to stridently haggle with shopkeepers that day.  The sellers of the goods felt the same and posted prices at a pittance of their goods' worth.  All around the duchy, the maker of the smallest noise received glares so all was quiet. 

Even the animals fell silent, as if they somehow sensed the terrible evil that had befallen their masters.  Birds and wild beasts avoided the duchy, so hunters sipped ale timidly in strangely hushed taverns.  Travelers, those newly arrived at Lesandor, did not understand but held their tongues to avoid trouble.  It was not as if the people could not speak.  That terror was now lifted from them.  No, their own sickened horror sealed their throats.  At least from words.  Throughout the day, endless shovels were employed in burying vomit.  Endless mugs were emptied to rinse bile out of quivering mouths.  Grown, hardened men cried and mothers drew their children to their chests.  

The poor children did not understand.  In hushed whispers they would say, "Where is Mira?"  "It's been two days, Momma."  "Why hasn't Mira come down to play?"  "Is Mira sick?"  Their mothers only looked at them sadly and told them hush.

Only one child broke the silence of Lesandor.  Screams filled the late Duke's residence and nothing would calm them.  After two days and a night, the servants no longer tried to soothe their mistress.  They allowed Mira to sob in their arms or pound on them with her weak fists.  They fed her when she let them, wiped her tears when she would hold still.  They kept the small girl from sharp objects and high places.  No one left her alone, no matter how she fought.  She was all the people of Lesandor had left, Duchess Mira.  They would not lose her too.

It was that desperation to save the child that sent the second messenger to Corus.  That rider Dryn Bachet rode twice as hard as his predecessor.  He carried no trivial message of the unsolved murder of his lady's family and the strange happenings surrounding the event.  His lady's life was at stake; it was in his hands.  For two days, Dryn rode hard.  He nearly ran the horse that carried him to the ground each day.  If he had an alternate horse, he would have already.  On the third day of riding west, he reached the cooler, less lush forests not far from the city of Corus.  The paths grooved through the stands of hardy trees were broken by the occasional surfaced root.  At the pace Dryn forced the horse, what happened next was inevitable.  

When the horse lamed its foot, Bachet let out a string of curses he never knew he knew.  A harsh voice reprimanded, "Such language, child!  What would your mother say?"  Whirling around in the small clearing he and the horse had tumbled into, the messenger saw he faced a monster.  He turned white as the thing resting on a tree limb cackled, "Never seen a Stormwing before, have you man child?"  Not to be swayed from his duty, Dryn pleaded with the Immortal.  "I beg of you, milady."  It was a female.  "Tell me the direction of the nearest town.  I must replace my horse to reach the palace in time."  

He tried to swallow the dry contents of his mouth as she glared at him.  "Time.  You mortals are all so concerned about time."  She cocked her head to the side as only those with bird blood could.  "Still, you look desperate.  Shall we play a game, mortal?  Tell me why you must hurry.  If your cause is worthy of my help, I will point you to a trader of horses, now headed to the capital.  You will never find her trail without me, but it is close enough that you may catch her on foot.  If your excuse is pathetic, I will torture you and slake my thirst with your fright.  Why so silent, child?  Speak up or you will be screaming shortly."

His words spilled out in a torrent.  "Milady, I was sent by the Duchy of Lesandor to travel swiftly to the city of Corus and beg the king to send back a mind healer for our duchess.  I am the second messenger to leave from our lands in three days, but my message is more important.  Mira, the youngest daughter of Duke Kirn, was found two days ago screaming.  It was the first sound we heard after the mist left."  Dryns voice began to crack.  "We found the duchess in the same room as her family, only they were dead.  Their hearts were…cut out of their chests.  We can't find the hearts.  The duchess has not stopped screaming.  We fear for her sanity.  

"Please, Stormwing!  She is only six years of age.  I must save her.  If she is not healed soon…"  He shuddered and tears escaped his eyes.  

"Enough!" a strangled voice cried.  Bachet looked up, startled.  Surely that young, compassionate voice could not belong to the ages old Stormwing.  She had withdrawn from view, hiding in the shadows on the ground underneath the trees.  "No Stormwing would dare risk the sanity of a child, traveler.  Go!"  A hand shot from the darkness, pointing.  "There is a brook not far from here.  The trader Onua has stopped there for evening.  Her horses are untrained, but fast, long winded, and born for rough terrain.  Go!"

Go the messenger did.  Such was his rush to find the trainer that his mind ignored several strange things about his encounter.  He did not miss the possibility that the Immortal had been toying with him and was sending him to his doom.  It was the other things that eluded him.  When he first met her, the Stormwing had perched on a branch.  Her bird feet explained that, but she had ended up on the ground after his plea.  Stormwings could barely stand on the earth because of their talon feet, yet she had easily.  The Stormwing's last words had been sweet and melodic, while the monsters were known for their harsh, crow-like caws.  All of that was excusable.  It was something else.  

The Stormwing had pointed the way with her hand.  It was a pure, clean limb, one that could only be found upon the most gentile noble maiden.  Stormwings did not so much have hands as horrible claws.  Filthy things, covered by centuries of rotted remains.  No Stormwing could possess such an arm.  A fact that Ravri the Stormwing knew all too well.  

"Could it be?" she mused with a faint awe for the beauty of her hand.  She knew much of her body had reverted to what it had been before its defilement, but she dared not look.  Ravri averted her eyes from that physical exquisiteness for she might remember the original beauty of her heart and soul.  She could not bear to know it again; it had brought her so much pain before.  Why else would she have accepted the curse as a blessing?  The only motive was to be free from guilt and doubt for eternity.     

But now a deceptive and deadly poison filled her silvery veins: hope.  "Could one of the children have returned to us?"  She whispered the venom's lie aloud.  It reverberated through her and she knew it would not stop until she purged the taint from her heart.  The children would never come because they were dead, every last one.  Ravri had taken a hand in their demise.  The Dark One's gift had been offered to her because of the entrails on her beautiful hands and the horrid guilty tears on her porcelain face.  She hardened her heart to the hope and cried out, "Impossible!"  The delicate fingers turned back into talons, proving the miracle had only been from her momentary and silly concern for the mortal child.  Ravri set out to defile her purified limbs at once.  She smiled at the lamed horse, grinning broader when its heart burst with fear.  "This horse the mortal lamed will be adequate until I can find a proper human corpse."

Dryn found the stream and the train of horses.  He also found a sturdy crossbow aimed at the space between his eyes.  "And you would be who, young fool?  This is not the area to traipse about alone, especially on foot.  There are worse things here than wild cats and wolves.  Are you –or rather, were you- one of them?"  This woman he assumed was Onua the horse trader was dusky skinned and had dark eyes.  The effect was handsome, but foreboding.  She stood tall and straight, but held herself loosely and looked very flexible.  There were most likely muscles under her loose shirt, but those hardly mattered when the weapon only required a finger twitch to kill.     

He slowly edged himself down to rest his hands on his knees and pant.  The woman's aim followed.  He gasped, "Worse things?  No , not me.  Just a lord's messenger."  He raised a hand to reveal the silver pendant wrapped onto the wrist.  His late duke's seal was engraved in it.  Bachet turned it from side to side, revealing the light layer of enamel in the grooves as it flashed in the light.  He hoped the trader knew that it meant he was authentic.  Onua lowered the bow; she was apparently aware of the crown's newest trick to prevent counterfeits.  She mumbled some complicated words in a language he didn't understand and the pendant's enamel glowed crimson.  She was very aware of the trick.  The crossbow was lowered but not unstrung.  The trader held it at the ready near her hip.  As he caught his breath, Dryn thought about what the woman had said.  A bit of irony struck him and he chuckled, "I'm not a worse thing.  I suppose that Stormwing I met a few minutes back would count though."  The crossbow's aim was immediately redirected to the trees behind him.  He waved a dismissive hand and she lowered the bow, about an inch.

"She won't bother us.  Too busy with my poor horse, I suspect.  Are you the horse trader Onua?"

Her black eyebrow arched and he explained, "The Stormwing told me you were this way."

"Why?  Why did she tell you and why did you actually believe that thing?"

The man dropped to the ground and looked up at her.  "Don't think that I didn't know I might run off a cliff following her directions, but I hardly had a choice.  You must understand I must obtain help for my lady quickly.  Arriving at Corus too late would be worse than not arriving at all, for I would know I had failed.  I needed a horse and I had to take the chance she actually told the truth."  He looked back into the trees.  "I must admit, when I explained why I needed to obtain a horse, she couldn't get me moving this way quickly enough."  The quirked eyebrow switched sides and he continued, "Lesandor's child duchess is in great danger of going insane."  He avoided reason why: the butchering of her family in front of her eyes.  "When she heard this, she cried out that no Stormwing would risk a child's sanity and screamed for me to come this way.  The Immortal sounded sincere, if you can believe."

She shook her head.  "I can't believe."  She tapped her foot.  "Well, are you waiting down there for, spring to come?  That pony on the end can take you to Corus.  Lame her and you're a dead man.  Leave her at the palace stables and I will take her back.  Your horse will be replaced there, I'm sure.  Go."

For the second time that day, Dryn followed the go command.  He was gone in minutes, pausing only to accept some of the supplies that had been in his late mount's saddlebags rather than his own pack.  A moment later, a girl appeared from inside the trader's tent.  She had the Scranran features that many people in Tortall possessed, but hers were authentic.  From the sleek golden dreadlocks to her vividly colored costume, which Onua's eyes found both appealing and painful, she was Scranra itself.  "Packing and moving are we?  Because close is the steel feather woman?"  Although her accent was barely noticeable and her vocabulary in Imperial common immense –a feat the trader found astonishing since the girl had known nothing of the language at the beginning of their journey- she had no sense of sentence structure.  It wasn't hard to understand and had a slow beauty like a waltz, but it did grow annoying.  Onua swore her companion spoke that way on purpose.  "On the head, Krimise.  Behind you."

A pony attempted to bite the Scranran.  Again.  It was the most unusual thing about the mysterious child in her opinion.  The ponies were constantly trying to chomp on Krimise, but not out of anger.  When they managed to nibble, it was as if they were saying, "Greetings, I have the utmost respect for you, but I must have a taste."  It almost seemed like they thought she was the proverbial grass clump of the god horses.  All tethered ponies insisted that the juicy bit just beyond their reach was that holy patch.  Unfortunately, Krimise was very much in range.  The girl deftly twisted away from the pony's teeth and lightly pounded a fist on its head.  The tawny animal made a sound very much like a sigh and went back to the real plants at its feet.  

Onua sighed and set about packing up the tent.  In the past few years, she had managed to pick the most unusual riding assistants.  There had been Mosdri, who had been followed by a magnificent golden eagle.  It had an uncanny ability to increase his boy's marginal Gift to the power and brilliance of a portable sun.  It went through all sorts of magic testing but turned out to be only a normal bird.  The mystery went unsolved when the two vanished on Midwinter Night, much to Numair's disappointment.  She had been through two others: a young man who was possessed by a very small but extremely nosy god and a child who had a habit of walking in people's dreams.  It was suspected that the second had been a demigod herself, but had also disappeared before anything could be proven.

She looked at the way the Lord's messenger had gone and then at the direction he had told her the kindly Stormwing rested.  'Horse Lords, is nothing in this country normal anymore?"   


	2. Cockatrice

***

Unable to Scream

***

In the palace, Dryn sat on a long bench against the wall of a hall he was told led to the king's office.  He impatiently waited for an audience with King Jonathan.  It seemed it would be days before he received an audience.  In two hours, only one messenger from the long line of seated men had been ushered through the ornate door at the end of the hall.  There were several men in front of him and he wanted to scream with frustration.  Surely six other noble houses were not facing the same... emergency as Lesandor.  

In an attempt to bide the time, Messenger Bachet studied the medallion upon his wrist.  Upon it, there was a great snakebird -a cockatrice curled about a great tree rising high above a forest.  It was not so much a snake like bird as a serpent with an eagle's head and wings that sprouted from the coils near the head.  

Even though it slept in the pendant engraving, it seemed more terrifying than the Stormwing Dryn had met could ever be.  The man let out a silent prayer to Ganiel that the cockatrice would only remain a nightmare in the minds of men and never fly Tortallan skies.  If it was already real, he prayed even more fervently that the God of Dreams would keep it asleep for eternity.  

How the cockatrice could fly if it were a true being, Dryn had no idea, but he hoped he would never have to find out how it would lift a snake's body that stretched hundreds of feet long.  He had an accurate idea of the pendant creature's actual size because he knew the tree it coiled around.  It was the Giant's Tree in Lesandor's forest.  

Legend had it that the forest was once an army of men led by their general who was half ogre.  It descended upon his Duke's ancestors, but a great mage passing through the area had taken pity upon the Lesandors plight.  With a sweep of his hand, a forest had sprung from the ground with gaping mouths.  

Each tree swallowed a soldier and the largest ate the general.  The Giant's Tree swelled five times the height and ten times the girth of the rest of the enormous ancient forest.

Bachet knew that story was no truer than the existence of the cockatrice, but doubt shadowed his face.  There was some believable quality in the engraving, as if the artist who made the design so long ago had created it from reality, from a sight he had actually seen.  The messenger hoped the artist had just been a talented one.            

He pulled his mind from the image of the monster with great feathery wings outstretched to fill the silver pendant.  It was not just a carving; it was the symbol of his duke.  Dryn shook his head furiously.  Duke Kirn was dead and no longer had any claim to Lesandor.  The pendant bore Mira's family insignia.  As the only surviving member, it was her symbol.  She was his duchess, his world, and that world lay in his hands.

Onua and Krimise looked out to Corus.  The ponies they rode grazed on the hill's tall grass.  The city lying in the distance was lit up by the midday sun.  The K'mir thought it was the best way to view the capitol.  From a distance there was no chance of being robbed.  

"Girl, have you ever gone through a crowded city before?"

"Always the forest was my home," the Scranran answered.  "In the city, watch for what should I?  Thieves?  Child snatchers?  Fear you that people might attack me to avenge those that Scranra's marauders killed?  Change clothes to look Tortallan, should I?"

The horse trader cut her off.  "Never change who you are, Krimise.  Never hide.  Besides, I think it would be a good lesson to Tortall that Scranra is not an entire nation of raiders and primitive tribes.  If only the civilization of Northern Scranra was not so secretive."

Krimise seized the Kmir's arm.  "How do you know of the North Empire?  Tell me at once!"

"Ah, so your syntax is a ruse.  I had thought you spoke like that on purpose."

The girl pulled Onua towards her, nearly dragging the woman from her horse.  Krimise was surprisingly strong.  "Answer the question."

"Rumor, legends of the Northern God-Empress, and the like.  Besides, where else could a person like you come from?  I've known Southern Scranran women and they were nothing like you.  Your hair is white gold and your skin has a copper cast to it.  Your clothes, though practical and of Scranran design, are too finely crafted and too vivid for a simple tribe to create."

Onua gestured behind her, to the trail they had taken from the Grimhold Mountains.  "Most of all, during our travels, you have been most at home in the plains, lush forests, and towns we passed through.  The Scranra the world knows is mountainous, very hilly and sparse at best.  There are no cities in that region.  You are obviously Scranran.  I could only assume the legends of the Northern Empire that lived in great cities betwixt plains and forest were true and that you were from there.  Now will you let me go?"

Krimise released her warily and Onua settled herself back in the proper upright position upon her mount.  The girl asked the horse mistress, "What will you do?"

The woman laughed, "Me, nothing.  Why should I care if your people prefer isolation?  The Bazhir are the same way, only they kill to stay private.  Oh, it's not done often these days, but there was a time when no foreigner could travel that desert and survive.  What has this Empire of yours done but hide behind a near impregnable mountain range and a collection of bloodthirsty hillmen?  Are you afraid Tortall would attempt to conquer you?"

"You did conquer the Bazhir," she replied quietly.

Onua sighed and replied, "The Old King did."  When Krimise frowned in confusion, Onua winced apologetically.  "I'm sorry, I mean King Jasson the Empire-builder.  He was one of the most bloodthirsty ruler's Tortall has ever known.  People wish to forget him so he is referred to only as the Old King now."  

Onua smiled ruefully.  "What I'm trying to say is: that was a rare bit of stupidity that Tortall must put up with forever.  King Jonathan and his children would be murdered in their beds if they tried to conquer and deal with another hostile territory.  Even though the Bazhir have decided to follow the King, there are still too many bandits, too many damned immortals, and too much land for the army to protect.  If a real war is launched against Tortall, may all the Gods in every Parthenon to the last trifling spirit help us."

Onua smiled at Krimise.  "Your people are safe; I have no reason to tell.  But I must ask you one thing."

The Scranran looked at her, puzzled.  Onua asked sweetly, "Do they sell horses?"

The girl laughed, shook her head, and the two took the train of ponies down hill to Corus.                        

 In the damned waiting hall, the door finally opened and Dryn was up on his feet immediately.  A boy in royal livery gestured to the man closest to the door.  Bachet blocked the way before the other messenger got on his feet.  

The servant wore a bored, somewhat exasperated expression.  In a slightly nasal tone, he recited, "Sir, if you will return to your seat, the King or his aides will see to you in good time."  The drudge repeated that line like a parrot after Dryn's protest, as if that one sentence explained everything.

A very long minute later, the messenger near shouted, "How many times must I tell you?  It is urgent that my message reach the King immediately!"

The servant rolled his eyes and Dryn near boiled over.  The young man looked at the messenger as if he were a foolish child.  "Yea, your message is urgent.  Just like the message of that one is urgent.  The one that walked in afore you, his was important too.  It was a demand that the debt of another noble to be paid to 'is master.  I don't know what your message is, but it is hardly urgent compared to the dozens of pleas for Spidren extermination that come in a single month."

"Spidrens!" Dryn sputtered.  He spent a precious moment recomposing himself before continuing, "And where, may I ask is the line for such emergencies?"

The boy laughed in a manner that was hardly polite.  "What line?  Such messages are dealt with immediately.  Do you say you bear something of equal importance?"

The messenger lost what little control he had gathered.  "Equal importance!  Mithros condemn you, I did not risk my life, escape the claws of a damned Stormwing to be shuffled off to the side.  As far as I can tell, these men can die of old age on those benches without ever sending their messages and their lords will not give a copper crescent."

"And you are any different?"  The boy snatched up Dryn's precious scroll of parchment and tore off the seal.  He unrolled it and studied it for a moment before turning it on the messenger.  He exclaimed, "You call this important?"

Behind them, the other messengers made comments about Bachet's arrogance to think he was better than them.  Dryn could hardly believe his ears.   

"You've read that and you don't think it's important!" he cried in angry disbelief.

The servant sniffed, "I don't even have to read it.  All I need to know lies at the bottom of the document.  This message cannot be anything but trivial.  The seal is of the general fief, not a specific noble.  It's not even signed and made authentic by your lord."

"My duke is dead!"

The servant froze and the grumblings of the other messengers ceased.  Dryn continued on, trying to pound the idea into the boy's head.  "And Duke Kirnathan's late wife and their sons, all four of them.  They were found murdered in milord's office, along with the six year old Mira, the only surviving Lesandor.  Let me try to explain it to you in simple terms.  Their hearts were cut from their chests, still beating as far as we may tell.  Duchess Mira saw it happen and is going quite literally insane.  Now if you will excuse, I have a duchess and a duchy to salvage."  

He pushed the servant roughly aside and went through the door.  Inside was not a King's office, but a small room with a few scribes and an official at a desk.  They stared at him in shock.  Did no one know about what happened at Lesandor?  Sure the other messenger had arrived before him. 

Dryn smiled lifelessly.  "I assume you heard that."

One scribe nodded silently.

The messenger pointed at a door set on the opposite wall.  "Is the King through there?"

The same young scribe answered again.  She shook her head.

"Then I have two questions.  Where is the guide that will escort me to the King and what is is the name of that idiot in the hall?  If my Duchess is not saved because my message was received too late, I want him punished."

In Lesandor, things began to return to normal.  The tasks of running and maintaining a duchy were willingly executed.  The people dove into work to delude themselves that everything was fine.  In the late duke's residence, however there was escape to normalcy.

The duke's advisor Morell took on the duties of decision making.  A private dining room that the family had used for private meals had been transformed into a workplace for the overburdened man.  No one could stand to be in the late duke's office, save one.

Duchess Mira refused to leave the room her family had been murdered in.  She wouldn't eat or sleep anywhere else.  Originally, the servants had tried to move the girl to her room while she slept.  After the third time she awoke the moment they took her out the doorway, the idea was abandoned.  They had all swallowed; then cleaned up the blood stains as well as they could and turned the office into a child's living quarters.

Every night there was an argument on who would be the girl's attendant until morning.  No one wanted to stay in the office after dark.  Eventually it came down to drawing straws –as it did every night.

Dorna cursed her luck.  It was the third time in a week she had drawn the short piece of chaff.  It would be her last.  If she drew short again, when the mind healer arrived, he would have two patients instead of one.  The maid impatiently looked from the clock above the fireplace's mantle to her charge and then to the clock again.

The timepiece had been one of Duke Kirn's most prized possessions.  Most people –even great lords- were forced to judge time by hourglasses, the sun, town criers, and bell ringers.  He had only needed to glance at it to know the time.  It was quite addictive.  Dorna checked the time about every two minutes.  It was only an hour to Midnight.  

The maid fretted at the time.  She had wagered a large portion of her savings that the mind healer would come that evening and it was nearly over.  However, it was not the loss of funds that bothered her.  Dorna had no doubt in her mind that if Mira did not receive help by the time she had bet on, the duchess would be forever lost to them.

Dorna gathered her courage and walked to the small bed.  The duchess struggled a little, trying to fight off nightmares.  In her hands, she clutched a rolled up sheaf of paper.  The maid slowly rearranged the blanket to cover Mira up to her shoulders, careful not to make it seem like she grabbed the girl's shoulders.  She had learned not to repeat that mistake early.

The servant could hug, carry, even drag the child and she would never react.  If anyone tried to hold her still, however, Mira would go into fits and try to scream.  Try was the magic word.

For almost a week, Mira had not said a word.  She had attempted to, but the words would never come out of her throat.  On first day, the house staff had feared the silence had returned to claim the surviving Lesandor.  That night, their fears had been dispelled.  The duchess screamed in her sleep well enough.

Carefully, Dorna stroked her lady's hair, trying to drive away the nightmares.  The clock began to peal softly, announcing the eleventh hour had begun.  The girl's breath caught on the last few stokes, but she relaxed when there was only silence after the eleventh chime.  The maid looked at the clock curiously.  Had the clock struck twelve when the murders occurred?  It was a chilling thought and she wondered if the maker of the wonderful piece of machinery could be convinced to change the clock to never chime twelve times again.  Perhaps an extra long peal for Midnight and Midday, she mused.  

Simple details like that were being taken note of everywhere about the late duke's residence.  If it could be altered to alleviate their Duchess Mira's torment, even if it was a trifling thing like a clock's chime, then it would be changed.

Mira shifted and renewed her grip on the roll of papers.  Her attendant longed to tear it from the child's grasp and toss it in with the hot coals of the brazier.  Unfortunately, she knew the girl would react in a very specific way.  Mira would awaken, go into fits, and try to scream, just like when she was taken out of the room, just like when someone tried to hold her still.  The duchess was very protective of her drawings.

The entire staff was horrified with the Duchess Lesandor's drawing subjects.  Pale, monstrous men hung in the air surrounded by strange hunchbacks wrapped in tattered cloth.  Once, the girl's precocious skill at drawing had delighted the servants.  In the past week and a bit, her deadly details pushed bile up and even out of throats.  The pictures were growing more gruesome with time.  

Dorna couldn't take it anymore.  She crept to Duke Kirn's desk, skirting a rug that managed to cover most of the red stains upon the floor.  Rummaging through the drawers, she searched for something she had seen once.  After a time, the maid found the box and pulled out a few pieces of paper before returning everything to the way it had been before.  

The servant looked at the drawings of an earlier, happier Mira.  There was a unicorn, the spun sugar cockatrice desert from last Midwinter feast, a puppy, and a picture of the duke himself.  All four were very accurate for a five-year-old's, pictures Dorna expected from a terribly talented young adult.  The servant pushed thoughts of the duke from her mind and put his picture atop the mantle where Mira wouldn't see it.  She did allow a moment to reminisce about the cockatrice.  It had been a celebration of the duke's tenth year of running Lesandor and the mythological dessert had only been one of many crowning glories.

Rolling up the remaining three pictures, Dorna went to the bed and eased Mira's bad drawings out of her hand.  Quickly, the young woman replaced them with the roll of paper.  The duchess frowned in her sleep, but settled down after a moment.

Relieved, the maid went back to her chair and sat.  She spread out the roll and studied the pictures.  The first was one very much like the ones she had grown used to.  A man's head smiled at her.  His face was horribly wrinkled and pale.  He had no hair.  His eyes stared wickedly.  Dorna thanked the gods it was only a crude sketch.  

The second was simply a tiny blade with a long, thin handle.

When she looked at the final picture, she gasped, dropped it and ran to a pot in the room.  Dorna vomited twice.  She covered the pot with its lid.  She went to a table with a nearby pitcher of water, a cup, and towels.  There, she rinsed the bile from her mouth and washed her face, thankful that none had got on her clothes or the floor that time.  

There was a shout from outside and the woman ran to the door and opened it.  In a moment, an elderly man in healer's robes rushed towards her from around the corner.  In a quite murmur that was a little short of breath, he told her, "I am Urjan, a palace mind healer.  Is the Duchess Miraronwyn still asleep after that racket?"

Dorna nodded dumbly.

"Good.  It will be best to start treatment as she dreams.  Will you allow me access to Miraronwyn, governess?

She smiled at the man's mistake.  How anyone could mistake a nursery maid like her for a governess was beyond her.  "Yes, of course.  But please, never call Duchess Mira by that name.  Her birth name is only used when she has done something terrible enough to need punishing."

Urjan looked thoughtful for a moment, and then nodded his head.  He walked into the office and looked around.  He looked back at Dorna.  "Is everything the way it was when she went to sleep?"

She shook her head and pointed at the drawings on the floor by her chair.  "Those were in her hand," she said softly.  The mind healer picked them up and looked over them without a hint of discomfort.  When he didn't berate her about it, Dorna continued, "The drawings she holds now were in a box in the desk.  They're from before.  So is the one on the mantle."  

Urjan plucked the duke's drawing from the mantle, studied it for a moment, and then put it in between the other monstrous drawings.  He rolled them up and walked to the duchess.  Just as the maid had done, he switched the set of drawings.  He looked at the bright, cheerful drawings before placing them on the Duke Kirn's desk.  He strode over the blood without a qualm.  Dorna winced and Urjan looked back at her and smiled apologetically.  "I'm sorry, my dear.  I know my actions trouble you, but I am attuning myself to Mira's mind.  She would think nothing of walking over those stains or using this desk and until I am finished with her, neither will I."

The elderly man took Mira in his arms and Dorna bit back her protest.  He smiled at her again.  "It was a good idea to switch the drawings.  However, placing a friendly image in with those hostile ones is more effective.  Mira should not forget what happened, but she must move on.  Remembering her father as the happy man in her picture will help move that process along.  You may leave, if you wish."

He closed his eyes and a faint, gray-green light began to glow about the two.  Dorna was drawn into the light and for a moment, she felt at peace for the first time since that terrible silent night.  She had been the sole guardian of Kirn, the Duke's youngest and namesake.  She had sat all night at the poor baby's wake, trying desperately not to look at the sunken chest of the corpse.  The light encouraged the nursemaid to let go.  She agreed and her eyes began to tear.  A tiny peal shook her out of it and she looked sharply at the clock as it began to chime Midnight.  How had an hour gone by so fast?

Dorna didn't worry about it as she left the healer and his patient.  She did have a hefty sum of money to collect on her bet, after all.

Dryn walked the halls of his duchess' residence slowly and thoughtfully.  Had he arrived in time?  Messenger Bachet didn't have the courage to find out.  He couldn't take the possible bad news.  

Eventually, he found his way to the kitchen.  The staff loved that area.  For one, there was a storeroom of food that was never barred to them.  Also, the kitchen had an extra sort of sitting and dining room connected to it.  That room was for their sole use.  A hearty group crowded into it, sharing a late supper.  The only time the servants stopped smiling was when they dropped money into a box at one table hoarded over by Miss Dorna.  

Somehow, the young woman managed to spot him through the wall of people and cried out to him.  "Dryn!  You couldn't have timed your arrival better.  My coffers and I thank you!"

He relaxed slightly at the outburst of laughter at Dorna's comment.  The grateful smiles directed at him cinched it.  The healer had come in time.  Dryn grinned with relief.  Dorna's next words knocked that smile off his face.  "Where's Mathin?"

The crowd grew hushed when Dryn didn't answer right away.  He looked at Dorna apologetically.  It would have been hard enough to break the news to her alone, but in a crowd it was almost unbearable to talk.  "Where's Mathin," he repeated listlessly, looking around the room for some face that didn't demand an answer to the gods-awful question.  Swallowing, he said, "Corus never received the first message."

Most people accepted his bland statement and he was allowed to leave again.  In the hall, Dryn set out to pace again.  Steps echoed down the stone passage as someone ran to catch up with him.  Dorna, having completely abandoned her money, grasped his shoulder and spun him around to face her.  "Where is Mathin?" she said again.  Dryn looked away and she shoved him into the wall.  He let her.

He looked at the woman.  Two weeks ago, she had seemed young to him.  Two weeks had aged her and Dryn supposed she wasn't the only one.  Once he had gotten past the idiot at that damned door in Corus, people had treated him with deference, as if he were suddenly ten years his own senior.  Bachet watched Dorna look at him with pleading eyes.  He felt old.  Sighing, he took hold of her shoulders and guided her to an empty room.  Sitting his charge down upon a stool in the workroom that housed Lesandor's finest looms, he turned away to look through the small window pane.  Somewhere out there, he knew, there was a glorious spring night.  It seemed like winter to Dryn.

He sighed and hung his head.  "Mathin, as far as I can tell, is somewhere between here and Corus, on some side road not traveled by often.  You know that idiot and his shortcuts.  He's probably halfway to the City of the Gods by now."  The old joke about Mathin's navigational skills fell flat.  "I won't lie for you, Dorna.  Mathin is most likely dead now.  But we still don't know that for sure.  The man is a survivor and that is the truth."

There was silence.  Two weeks ago, Dryn couldn't handle a moment's quiet.  Two weeks could change a person.  Too soon, Dorna broke the blessed quiet.  "Will you wait for Mathin with me?"  

Dryn pulled her to her feet.  "Of course.  But shall we go save your moneybox from the thieves gathered in the kitchen first?"  She gasped and raced out into the hall.  A minute later, she hefted a meat cleaver in her hands as sheepish servants put back the money they had taken.  Another minute later, Bachet carried the heavy box against his hip as he walked Dorna to her tiny room that connected to the nursery.  Inside, he noticed that she had barred the door that led to the playroom.  There were bad memories behind that door.  Quietly, he asked, "How is our Mira?"

She looked at him and smiled.  "Mira will be just fine."

With that little bit of shining hope, he bid the poor woman goodnight.  Silently, he prayed to Mithros and the Goddess that they would be fair and not leave her pregnant with a dead man's child.  

Ravri floated just above the trees, trying to sniff out the location of some rotted animal.  In the week following her accidental purification, she had bathed in the putrefied remains of every dead thing she had found.  The Stormwing began to doubt she would ever find a human corpse.  As she searched, she reminisced about her glory days when the dead had covered the ground so thickly that she had been forced to dig to find the bloodstained earth.  

The sound of crawling maggots, though incredibly faint, caught her ears.  She dove through the tree line and landed on the ground, using the corpse as a perch.  The scent of decaying human flesh delighted her.  She tore apart the body with her claws and rolled around in the crimson mud.  She feasted and laughed as the army of white maggots squirmed away.  

A glint of light caught her eye and she lifted up a forearm to see the pendant shining there.  "Hello, little cockatrice.  Do you belong to the mortal child I nearly ate last week?  He wore you, or at least your twin.  Can I keep you, pretty?"  Ravri realized what she had said and threw the arm away, down the desolate road.  She was acting like a bloody newborn, coveting shiny objects like a damned crow.  She was _not one of the Dark One's creatures.  She was not turning into one of His ravens.  She had been her own master for millennia.  She would not allow him to collect what remained of her blackened soul.  Ravri burst through the crowns of the forest and screamed out the Stormwing cry of freedom.            _


	3. What Children Deserve

***

Unable to Scream

***

"You won't be heard," the girl whispered  

Urjan knelt and took her hand, "What was that, Mira?"

"'m tryin' ta 'member," she mumbled back.  Across the room, Miss Dorna looked up from her stitching and corrected, "It's 'I'm trying to remember,' milady."  The duchess made a face that the governess smiled at.  She went back to her embroidery, still smiling.  As the person with most experience with the new Mira, the former nursemaid had been elected to be the girl's governess.  Her bad luck at drawing straws had turned into a bit of good fortune.  If only Mathin was there to congratulate her.  There was still no news whether her love was dead, killed by the roads' perils, or just lost.  Some fantasy in her head imagined him riding towards her open arms that very moment. 

Dryn was more practical, but he held out a little hope for her.  Every night he sat and talked with her.  He made sure she ate and cracked enough jokes to help her forget.  When he ran out of things to say, he always asked about Mira.  The girl was the driving force of the entire duchy.  Hardly anything was done anymore if not for the duchess and her future.  Every toast she had heard in the last three days was to Mira.

"To Mira," Dorna whispered as she set the final stitch of her white rose.  As a child, she had learned of embroidery and loved it, but nursery maids had little time for the fine but tedious work.  The governess of a child that never caused trouble had hours to whittle away.  Dorna switched threads and started on a scale of the cockatrice.  One day, perhaps in a year or two of solid work, the grand piece of work would be finished.  Lesandor cloth and embroidery was prized as the best in Tortall.  Dorna was used to creating large tapestries commissioned by different lords.  It was tradition for noble houses to have some sort of wall hanging that proclaimed their lineage.  

Dorna saw no reason why Lesandor shouldn't outdo all the others.  After all, the duchy had been its own nation before Tortall's formation.  The prosperous towns and villages in the surrounding countryside still paid liege to the Lesandor family.  The duchy held a lot of weight in the kingdom; it had to right to be proud.  That was why the governess created the embroidery as large as a tapestry with fine silk and metallic threads.  She had no illusions about her skill, but she was the only person with time to complete such a task.  

It was unwritten law in Lesandor that -unless the artist died- the person that started a piece finished it.  A trained eye could always tell when several people had worked on one piece.  The type of stitching would change or the direction of the stitches would be different.  So Dorna worked on the enormous task, given daily advice by the duchy's best embroiderer.  One day, the majestic cockatrice would curl about the Giant's tree as white rose vines twined about it.  

She paused a moment to look through the window at the pure white roses framing it.  Those magnificent roses grew on the trees of Lesandor's forest.  Some had been coaxed to grow along walls and in hanging gardens, but not one vine had ever survived outside of the Lesandor, even when planted in the duchy's own soil.  

Settling back into her work, the governess heard Mira laugh quietly at something Urjan had said.  It was the most wonderful sound in the world.                  

The dining hall grew hushed as Krimise strode in.  Over the last week, the Riders and the early arriving trainees had grown used to the girl's vivid and exotic costumes.  It was shocking to see her dressed in something that somewhat resembled Tortallan garb.  Brown leather boots were covered by long tough trousers of the same bark color.  Her shirt started as the brown of her lower body, but branched out to reveal a sky blue in between.  The effect was rather like she was a tree in winter.  The Scranran's hair was also bunched together in a horsetail.  Most of her ever-present jewelry was gone.  

The girl sat at her usual place between Onua and Sarge.  Immediately, she turned to the bellowing giant and stated, "I wish to become a rider."  She then dug into her tray as if she had said nothing.  The horse mistress looked at the large man over her former assistant.  They had no legal grounds to actually turn the girl down but they had never thought they would have too.  Onua felt a twinge of greed and almost flat out refused.  

Krimise was by far the best traveling partner she had ever had, including Daine.  She had never seen unbroken ponies move half the speed at which the Scranran could lead an entire train.  For the first time in her many years of bringing ponies to Corus, she had arrived early, before the Riders' cutoff date.  There was nothing a trader loved more than arriving early.

The K'mir had no idea why the girl would want to become a rider.  She had shown no sign of it on the trip.  It wasn't as if she needed a job.  Half the palace was falling on her to teach them about her wardrobe's dyes and patterns.  The other half begged the girl to show them the designs of her jewelry.  When Krimise revealed that she had made the majority of her possessions with her own two hands, the members of five different guilds had offered to take her in as a full journeyman.  As Onua had originally suspected, the foreigner would be the center of attention around the palace for a while.  She was just to obvious and exotic to miss.

Besides being unable to think of a reason why, Onua could think of several reasons why Krimise shouldn't become a rider.  The foremost was that Riders dealt with Scranran raids the more than any military group.  It would hardly be fair to keep the girl's unit from the fighting in the north.  Krimise would have to kill her own people.  

She sighed and stood up.  "Krimise I need to talk with you privately.  You can take your tray with you."  The horse mistress led the Scranran away towards her office.  Behind them, there was a silent moment before Sarge roared for the trainees to stop gawking and start eating.

Urjan reviewed his notes on the desk of the late Duke Kirnathan.  Mira slept and Miss Dorna worked on some enormous piece of embroidery.  The early afternoon sun warmed his back as he paged through his findings.  One of Mira's nightmare drawings stood propped against the back of the desk.  

It was a strange piece of the puzzle.  Ever since the little artist was able to, Mira had drawn with a critical eye for accuracy and detail.  Her pictures from after the murder were still very detailed and realistic, but the mind healer knew for a fact that at least some were distorted imagination.

He had no doubt that the murder weapons or the drawings without the monsters were true.  It was the pale, bestial men and the ragmen that made no sense.  Given that Duchess Mira had only drawn things she had seen with her own eyes in the past, Urjan had held a mage conference with the palace's expert on Immortals.  Tkaa, though very troubled by Mira's mental images that the mind healer sent him, said he knew of no such creatures.  

With the Basilisk's assurance that the monsters were imaginary, Urjan began to look through Mira's mind for the true events of that night.  Strangely, there was no record to be found.  Yet she dreamed of it vividly every night.  The mind healer was unwilling to take the small child through guided dreams to search for the answers in Ganiel's lands.  Children's imaginations could be quite deadly and he had no desire to fall prey to Mira's monsters.  

Instead he studied the pictures for clues.  One drawing that he had found on the floor the night he arrived was quite startling.  In it, there were seven jars of glass.  Inside six floated human hearts: three large, two medium, and one tiny.  The seventh was empty.  The jars were very close and the details of the hearts were easily visible.  Urjan had no doubt that the image was real.

Next to the empty jar, there was a dark liquid.  It took him a moment to realize what it was in the black and white picture.  It was blood.  

"Dorna," he said softly.  The governess looked up and walked to him, skirting the rug a bit.  When she was close, he asked, "When you found Duchess Mira, did she have a scratch or cut over her chest?"  The woman's lip trembled, but she nodded.  "Thank you, that's all I needed to know."

Urjan was more confused than before.  If the same gruesome murder had been begun on the child, why had she been spared?  Why did Mira draw imaginary monsters?  What had been that mysterious fog that stole the voices of the entire duchy?  

He put the questions aside and went back to his duty, to heal the duchess' mind.  He didn't need to know what had happened to fix it.  He only needed to know what was broken.

Onua sat at her cluttered desk with Krimise across from her.  "I'm sorry girl, but I can't allow you become a rider.  I don't doubt that you can do it and do it well, but have you thought about what will happen next spring when the Scranran raids begin?"

The girl's response surprised her.  "Yes, it was the key factor in my decision.  My gods pushed me to you for a reason and I know this is it.  Scranra is disgraced by the filthy Hillmen.  The Northern Empire prefers privacy, yes, but not to the point of being forgotten.  It doesn't desire to be thought the same as its southern bastard cousins."

The horse mistress shook her head.  "One may not be the voice of an entire nation, Krimise.  Becoming a rider will make no difference.  Killing your own people will make no difference."

The girl looked at the ceiling pleadingly.  Standing up, she placed a hand on her hip.  "I have no love of my people.  Forest folk, Plains children, Hillmen...they are all bastards to me.  There is no life for me there."

Krimise looked to Onua pleadingly.  "Yet I believe.  In that deep emotional place your people call the heart, I believe.  My gods.  My...my culture, my heritage."

The Scranran bared her ritually scarred wrists to the horse mistress.  "My blood.  I believe in that, all of that!"  Desperation filled her voice and she dug her wrists into her belly.  

"I believe that my children do not deserve to be thought of as barbarians and beasts!  They deserve a lineage that fought against ignorance and racial hate, ancestors that spilled and lost blood for honor and innocence, they deserve a mother that fought for their innocence so they would not be judged guilty for the deeds of some filthy Scranran bandit!"       

          Tears filled her eyes.  "Don't they deserve that, Onua?  Don't I deserve that?  I've seen the people here and I have seen what they think of me.  Even as they adore me, they think me primitive.  Even as those...what is your word...craftsmen, guild members?  I call them parasites.  They praise my skill, but in their eyes I see their distaste, as if I were secondhand goods."

She grew cynical.  "And I mean that in every possible meaning."

          Exasperated, she cried, "Don't you see?  If I stay here and become a craftswoman, my children will be second class, wealthy, but a leprous thief will be trusted before them.  I must do this, become a Rider, I must!"

          A rich voice from the doorway said, "Very well...Krimise is it?  You may become a trainee on the condition that you do not ruin that wonderful, persuasive speaking voice of yours.

Krimise turned to see a woman of mixed descent.  Behind her, Onua sighed, "Well I am hardly one to disobey my superiors.  You do realize though girl, that this means you must move into the dormitory."  The Scranran waved dismissively, bowed to woman who apparently held some weight with the Queen's Riders, and left to pack.

The foreign woman took Krimise's discarded seat.  She smiled and commented, "Really Onua, where do you find these assistants?  I still have not gotten over having a god rant at me through a boy of fifteen years.  How old is this one, by the way?"

Onua smelled something.  "Seventeen.  I dare say she's nearing her eighteenth year, Majesty."

Thayet made a little delighted sound.  "Good!  I had worried she would be too young.  Have put in for officer training then."

Onua's nose had yet to fail her.  "Do you think that wise, Thayet?  There's a goodly chance she would have subordinates whose families were killed by Scranrans."

The Queen shook her head.  "Better to have superiority over that type than to serve underneath.  She'll be able to prove herself to them better as a leader than a soldier.  Besides having leadership qualities, there's another reason I want her as an officer.  Zahil was made an officer as well, did you ever wonder why?"

"That Bazhir was a very capable and charismatic young man."

"And Krimise is not both capable and charismatic?  I do believe she could have melted Wyldon's resolve with that speech."

Onua smiled wryly.  "You don't like the new training master, do you?"

The Queen wrinkled her strong nose.  "That's avoiding the subject, but for the record, he's a bloody stone in my hoof.  A very long, pointed one that is quite painful, but is so round and smooth on the visible side that I can't remove it without lopping off the foot altogether.  And we both know what happens to crippled horses."  She slit her throat with a finger, and then shrugged her shoulders.  

"So I am forced to hobble about with my foot bleeding; deal with this damned pregnancy -which is horrible, by the way; and do my juggling act of being a military leader, mother, wife, Queen, and the darling of a country whose best praise is, "If her Majesty didn't have bad blood and a mind of her own, she'd be perfect."

  Thayet opened her mouth to rant some more, and then paused.  She laughed, "Damn, you're good.  Back to Krimise and Zahil, I want people like them as officers because they know the terrain and the people they will be fighting.  Krimise will know the method to the Scranran madness.  She will know where they will strike and when.  More to the point, she will know where and when to strike to cripple them.  She is dedicated, smart, and will not allow herself to fail.

"Why are you arguing with me?  I'm your queen and you actually think I have a brain in this lovely little head.  Put her in the officer training course or we'll be having a less pleasant conversation than this tomorrow.  I'll bring my toys."

Onua winced and nodded.  She still thought it was crazy, but who was she to argue with a ruler who could trounce her on the battlefield without disturbing a hair on her royal head.

Thayet stood.  "Well," she sighed, "it's time to hobble away and be the darling juggler again.  I need a break."

"You'll just have to wait for Roald to grow up and take the throne, Thayet," Onua said sweetly.

The Queen talked to herself as she walked out the door.  "Good gods, he's only nine years old!  I can't wait that long!  I'll go mad, absolutely raving mad."         


End file.
